1Password suddenly switched to a different vault that I didn't expect

reck

I have 1Password installed on the following devices.

Work computer - Windows 10
Home computer - Windows 10
iPhone
iPad

I have two vaults, a home one for my personal passwords and a work one. These sync via Dropbox.

Everything has worked fine since day one and then yesterday, or the day before, I can't quite remember, I noticed Dropbox syncing loads and loads of files which is strange as the contents don't tend to change much normally. Then when I attempted to view my home vault on my iPhone I got a message saying it wasn't syncing and I need to set it up with Dropbox.

I tried on my ipad and got the same message, my home vault is no longer syncing. My home computer running windows 10 appears fine.

I checked my 1Password backups folder and noticed that my "home" vault has changed filename to "Default". The last backup of home was on Monday and contains 242 items. The "default" backup that occurred today has 227 items in it.

Back on my iPhone if I attempt to setup the sync option to Dropbox again for my home\default vault I get the option to choose the vault, either work or default, so I select default. I then get the following message.

"Vault discrepancy. It appears that the primary vault is different from the vault you selected in Dropbox. Please review these differences before deciding to merge these vaults"

If I select view differences I see the following information.

Your vault
Number of items: 242
Last Updated: 6 Apr 2016

Dropbox Vault
Number of items: 227
Last updated: 28 Jul 2015

and then it asks if I want to merge the items. I've cancelled out at this point until I can work out what's going on.

The big question is why is the Dropbox vault showing a last updated date back in 2015?

Please help. How do I sort this mess out without losing any information? This is very worrying.

I think, hope, all my information is here, but it's all got mixed up somehow

Many thanks.

---

1Password Version: 4.6.0.604
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: Windows 10
Sync Type: Dropbox

reck

I've just got to work and logged in to my Windows machine. My "work" vault was loaded into 1Password so I went to File->reopen 1Password vault and home.agilekeychain was listed but when I click it I got a message that the vault doesn't exist!

I then went to file->open 1Password vault and could see a vault called default which I opened which is my home vault.

When I view all items in the default vault and sort by Modified I can see that the latest modified date is 28 Jul 2015, which ties in exactly with the date in the message I received on my iPhone which I mentioned in my previous message.

Can anyone make sense of this? It looks my home vault has been renamed to default and has gone back in time to 28th Jul 2015. So the question is where is my current "home" vault with all my latest stuff in it?

MikeT

Hi @reck,

Thanks for writing in.

It looks my home vault has been renamed to default and has gone back in time to 28th Jul 2015

That's extremely unlikely, it's more likely it found a different vault and started using it. The fact that you were able to unlock the default vault means it is your vault but it was left behind somewhere on your computer.

My theory is that on your PC, you had both home and default vaults on the drive and when the home vault became inaccessible, 1Password opened the default vault instead but it should ask you about that. Also, it wouldn't automatically move it to Dropbox without your permission unless it was already in your Dropbox folder. That does fit with your Work PC experience when you try to open the Home folder that you saw but it couldn't be opened.

We don't have any code that renames any vault nor do we use default, the default name is 1Password.agilekeychain.

First thing I'd recommend is log in to your Dropbox account on Dropbox.com in your browser. Go to Events on the left sidebar and go back in time to see if anything deleted your home vault and if it shows which computer or device uploaded the default vault.

Your best option for your Windows PC is the following:

1. Open the main 1Password program, go to the Backup Menu > Restore 1Password Vault from backup, select the Home backup that was created on Monday and showing 242 items count.

2. Choose the option to Restore to New folder and put it in your Dropbox > Apps > 1Password folder. Wait for Dropbox to finish uploading your data.

3. Unlock 1Password and make sure this is the data you want.

4. Open 1Password on your iOS device and try selecting the Home vault in Dropbox now, 1Password should not ask about merging the data, it should resume the sync now.

If everything looks good, remove the default vault from the Dropbox folder.

Let me know if that helps.

reck

Hi Mike,

I've done as you've suggested and checked the events and also the deleted items in Dropbox and sure enough I can see some (all) my "home" vault data was deleted on Monday somehow. I've got no idea how this one folder could have been deleted like this and i'm so glad now that I had backups turned on otherwise I would have been really stuffed.

Anyway i've done as you've suggested and i've got my home vault up and running again on all my devices which is great. However i'm still seeing a primary vault alongside my "work" and "home" vaults on my iOS devices which I assume was syncing with the default vault. I've deleted it from dropbox so I just want to know how I can now remove it from iOS?

Thanks for your assistance.

MikeT

Hi @reck,

We assigned Primary to the first vault that you load into the iOS app, regardless of what the original vault name it has. This is because the first vault determines the primary master password to unlock the app.

You should be resuming the Home vault for the Primary vault if that was the case before. Can you open 1Password on the iOS device, go to Settings > Sync, tap on Primary and tell me if it is syncing with anything right now? It should say it on top, if it says Sync service... Dropbox, tap on this and it should tell you which vault it is using.

reck

I've gone to sync settings on my iPhone and can see the following.

The Home vault is syncing to home.agilekeychain
The Work vault is syncing to work.agilekeychain.
Next to primary it says - "Set up Syncing". So to answer your question no, primary is not set for syncing at the moment.

It's a bit confusing to see this primary vault to be honest, this isn't even present on Windows where I simply have home and work.

If I can't delete primary what can I do? I've already got access to the two vaults I need.

MikeT

Hi @reck,

The concept of primary and secondary vaults do not yet exist in 1Password on Windows, it's something we're working on.

Can you switch between the Primary and Home vault in 1Password to see if there's any differences in the item count between both?

Could you email us at support+windows@agilebits.com and we'll explain a few options you have with regarding to the primary vault.

reck

The concept of primary and secondary doesn't really make sense though as the primary vault can change depending on the situation. At least in the case of home/work vaults which I assume must be quite a common scenario. When i'm at home i'm only bothered about my home vault most of the time, so that becomes my primary vault, while at work this is switched around so my work vault is my primary vault.

It makes much more sense on Windows where there is no primary vault and I can simply go by the names of the vault which makes sense in all situations and doesn't change. If I want a work password I go to my work vault, if I want a home password my home vault. I don't have to consider what's primary or secondary. Can see you see what I mean?

Wouldn't it make more sense to let users name their vaults as they please and reference them that way? Users could still name them primary\secondary if they wanted. I hope you don't change the Windows version so one vault is forcibly called "primary" with no way to change it. What would be a primary vault in my case?

It looks like home and primary are the same Mike. The amount of items are the same and taking a quick look the items seem to match up as well.

I'll send you an email so we can discuss how I can get rid of one of the 3 vaults.

MikeT

Hi @reck,

I understand. However, in 1Password for Mac, iOS and Android, you can switch between vaults without unlocking. We do this by encrypting the internal database with the master password for the first vault you set up in 1Password, aka the primary vault.

The Windows version is the only one that doesn't do this, so the behavior is different then expected and we plan to make sure it matches the rest of the apps.

We've been doing this for more than a few years now and it's been working pretty well. We've been getting more requests to make the Windows app behave like the rest and this is what we will do.

We might be able to figure out a better or different way to present the primary vault in future designs of 1Password.

Let me know when you sent the email here, so I can look for it.

reck

However, in 1Password for Mac, iOS and Android, you can switch between vaults without unlocking.

Now that would be a nice update on Windows, can't wait for that to come around.

Cheers.

reck

Email just sent.

MikeT

:smile: You're not alone.

Although, this is already implemented for the new beta version of 1Password for Windows 10 that's based on the Universal Windows Platform, which you can download now from the Windows store. It's not ready yet for regular use but it's getting closer in each beta update.

reck

Mike are you planning to release the next version off 1Password Desktop in the beta channel in the future before mainstream release?

AGAlumB

@reck: Absolutely! I can't say when that might be, but we definitely want to have a public beta so that we can get feedback from you and the rest of our awesome customers. I can't wait!! :)

reck

The 3rd vault has again appeared on my iPad this morning. Everything else appears fine.

I'm now seeing these vaults on my devices.

Work PC vaults

• Home
• Work

Home PC vaults

• Home
• Work

iPad vaults

• Home
• Work
• Primary .

The primary vault is currently doing anything on the iPad and I know I can't delete it. I could just ignore primary but it's getting in the way. How can I keep this 3rd vault from keep appearing on iOS?

Thanks

AGAlumB

@reck: Hmm. I thought I understood, but maybe I'm a bit confused.

Do you mean that you have a sequentially-third vault on the iPad which is named "Primary"? The technical Primary vault will be first in the list, so I want to make sure we're talking about the same thing.

Apart from the first "Primary" vault, 1Password for iOS will only show additional vaults you've sync'd to it. It isn't possible to create secondary vaults within the app, after all. But if this is a vault you do not use or no longer want to, and your other vaults (that you do want to keep) are stored in Dropbox, it sounds like the best thing to do would be to delete the app from your iPad, reinstall it, and then setup your vaults there the way you want them. Let me know if that helps!

reck

Hi brenty,

Yes this is THE primary vault, not some other vault called primary. As you can call vaults what you like on Windows I have one called "home" and one called "work" (no primary vault). I know iOS forces you to use a vault called primary, which is annoying as I don't have what I would call a primary vault, or what's considered primary changes on my location, but I’ve mentioned this before so I won’t start another rant ;)

Anyway primary is a bit redundant at the moment as I just use the other two vaults and primary isn’t synced with anything. What Mike suggested last time this happened is I unsync home and then sync primary to home and remove home so I’ll give that another go. I just don’t want it to revert back to home again and then I’m left with primary not doing anything.

MikeT

Hi @reck,

Yes, you would have to repeat the same actions you did on the iPhone with all of your iOS devices. So, first make sure the primary vault has the same content as the home vault. If yes, then do what you did on the iPhone.

If it is not the same, then Brenty's suggestion is the method to use if you don't want to undo what you did. Basically, reinstall 1Password app on the iPad, open it, select Sync existing vault > Sync with Dropbox, choose the Home vault first to make it the primary vault, and then add the Work vault.

reck

Mike,

I've already done this on the iPad. I did it at the same time I did my iphone. It was fine for a day or so and then the 3rd vault came back again.

I'll repeat the procedure and see if it sticks this time.

Cheers.

MikeT

Hi @reck,

Then that's a big bug, there is zero reason 1Password for iOS would add a third vault out of nowhere. Could you email us the diagnostics report from the iPad. Please use this guide to generate the report and email it to us at support+ios@agilebits.com. Also, in the email, include the link to this thread along with your forum username, so that we can connect the email to this thread.

Let us know here when you've sent it, so we can confirm we got the email.

reck

I'll send the diagnostic report Mike.

One other thing I just remembered. When I was on my home computer last night I opened 1password and noticed I only had a few items showing. Most of my passwords were missing and I freaked out. Then I noticed Dropbox was syncing a load of files and when I reopened 1password all my passwords had returned. It was as if the whole vault was downloaded for the first time. Also when I opened on iOS (can't remember if iPhone or iPad) I noticed all the items disappeared for a second and then started appearing over the course of a second or two. Really strange.

MikeT

Hi @reck,

Yea, that's not normal at all, there's an issue with your Dropbox configuration somewhere. Could you check the Events page on Dropbox.com and see if the entire folder got deleted again?

If yes, then that is why you're seeing everything happening again, something is deleting your entire 1Password database and when it was then restored by 1Password on a different computer or device.

MikeT

I think you should get in touch with Dropbox and see if they can help you pinpoint which device is deleting your data.

reck

Mike just sent diagnostics report.

I've gone through my Dropbox events for the last week to look for any deletions relating to my 1Password data but couldn't see any. I could see a lot of "You edited the file" type entries for my 1Password data but presumably that's normal?

These are the type of files that have been edited.

.ws.agile.1Password.settings.
RANDOMLETTERS&NUMBERS.1password

Dropbox holds deleted files for 30 days so i've checked my delete items as well.

The last recorded date for any 1Password data being deleted was the 7th April, which must relate to the time when I first reported the issue, nothing has been deleted since then.

Everything seems fine on my ipad, iPhone and work computer today. Still only seeing the two vaults.

AGAlumB

Thanks! That's great news. Fingers crossed! I wanted to clarify a few things here, in case it helps you or anyone else.

.ws.agile.1Password.settings.

This is a settings file used by some version of the app to locate the vault in Dropbox.

RANDOMLETTERS&NUMBERS.1password

These files are your actual items encrypted and stored in 1Password. The random numbers are a Universally Unique IDentifier, so if you make a change to an item in your vault, the corresponding .1password file will be modified.

Be sure to let us know if the problem reoccurs, and send fresh diagnostics if and when it does...but hopefully you won't run into further issues. Thanks for your patience and willingness to work with us on this! :)